Our Culture & The Arts

We are truly at the crossroads. The City of Las Cruces represents a rich and diverse culture and history shared with many nations and many peoples. Beyond Billy the Kid and the history of Manifest Destiny, a rich and vibrant culture lives and breathes in Las Cruces that is not adequately being told.

Our prehistoric, Native, Spanish, Mexican, Mestizo, New Mexican, and American culture come together here but are not equally represented. There is beauty in diversity, and there is beauty in identity. As your City Councilor, I will promote our Native, Mexican, and Mestizo culture and identity in a stronger and more prideful way.

To keep our best and brightest here and to encourage Cruceños to invest in their community, we must create a sense of shared ownership in our community. We can do this in many ways, including by promoting a more multicultural arts & culture plan for the City of Las Cruces. Our people are multicultural and multinational, they speak different languages and hold diverse beliefs, and we should embrace that as a city. Our public art and our investment in cultural resources should honestly reflect the people in our community as well as our shared history.

District 3 has an abundance of opportunities waiting to be unlocked that can help our artists, our historians, our youth, and our creative minds tell an accurate story of our city. As your City Councilor, I will encourage efforts to diversify and fund opportunities to ensure that artists of all cultures have the opportunity to help craft the identity of our city and its people.